Grow Your Own: The Mixologist Simple Syrup Collection

My cocktail-loving friends at Log House Plants have put together a collection of plants that are particularly worth growing for infusing in simple syrups and for making infused vodkas and liqueurs. They’re a wholesale nursery, so they’re growing the plants for sale at retail garden centers and gourmet grocery stores on the West Coast. Look for them in your local indie garden center/grocery store, or order them online from the Territorial Seed Company, who has joined in this effort and put together a great collection of cocktail-friendly plants and seeds.

Here’s what we chose for the Mixologist Simple Syrup Collection:

Agastache ‘Golden Jubilee’

Lavender ‘Grosso’

Scented Geranium ‘Attar of Rose’

Mint ‘Orange’

Angelica archangelica

Basil ‘Thai’

Read on for recipes, growing tips, and more.

Growing tips and cocktail ideas: Agastache

Also called anise hyssop or licorice mint (Agastache foeniculum) This tough little perennial is, in fact, a member of the mint family, and the leaves do taste and smell of licorice or anise. It’s completely hardy on the West Coast and will survive winter temperatures as low as -25F. In summer, the plants thrive on sun and very little water, pushing up flowering stalks that reach a couple feet in height. Because it’s such a widely adaptable plant, you’ll find that anise hyssop does just fine in partial shade as well.

These plants have been the subject of a great deal of hybridizing, but I haven’t noticed any compromises in the flavor of the leaves. So you might as well indulge your vanity and shop for good looks. ‘Golden Jubilee’ is popular for its chartreuse leaves and brilliant blue flowers, andA. aurantiaca ‘Fragrant Delight’ produces a mix of orange, purple, and lavender blossoms. ‘Blue Fortune’ is considered the workhorse of the bunch, with light blue flowers and a really vigorous habit. They all attract bees, butterflies, or hummingbirds, and they require zero care except for shearing back the dead blossoms at the end of the season.

So what do you do with them? In Scott Beattie’s book Artisanal Cocktails, he slices the leaves into long, thin strips and shakes them over ice with vodka and a berry-infused simple syrup, then serves the drink with seltzer water and garnishes with more of the leaves and blossoms. I’ve also seen it muddled into a gin & tonic, and anise hyssop-infused simple syrup is generally a good upgrade to ordinary simple syrup in any fruity or floral drink. The flowers are edible, so feel free to garnish with them as well.

Herbal simple syrup: Heat equal parts sugar and water until sugar melts, then add fresh herbs & allow to steep for 1 hour. Refrigerate. Use a splash of vodka as preservative.

Growing tips and cocktail ideas: Lavender

The best way to get a little lavender flavor in a cocktail is to make a simple syrup with it. Be sure to start with either an English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) like the strongly fragrant ‘Violet Intrigue’ or ‘Munstead’—they’re the ones most often used in cooking or perfumes–or L. x intermedia like ‘Grosso’ or ‘Provence.’ Both require sun, fast-draining soil, minimal water, and winter temperatures above 0F to survive. Mulch is unnecessary, and in fact, wood mulch can cause rot at the base of the plant. Use grey pea gravel if you’re going to mulch. After the plant blooms, shear off the spent flower stalks and the top 1/3 of the foliage, but never cut down to bare wood–the plant won’t recover from that treatment. Lavenders are fairly short-lived plants: plan on replacing them after about 5-7 years.

Make up a pot of simple syrup and just toss in fresh or dried lavender buds while it cooks. Strain it, cool it, and mix it. I’d use it in anything involving gin, vodka, or sparkling wine. A fresh lavender bud also makes a fabulous Martini garnish; the essential oil spreads out on the surface of the gin and magical things happen. Looking for lavender in a bottle? Yes indeed! Check out Scrappy’s Lavender Bitters.

Scented geranium (Pelargonium spp.) Not a true geranium, these fragrant pelargoniums are the result of endless hybridizing, which is why it’s impossible to list a particular species. You can get scented geraniums that smell (and taste) of roses, coconut, apple, nutmeg, strawberry, lime, and ginger. They do great in containers, they can tolerate dry soils, and they prefer full sun but will put up with a little shade. If you’re growing the plants for flavor, do give them as much sun as possible to encourage the development of essential oil.

The flowers are edible so they’re safe to use for garnish, and the leaves release a tremendous amount of flavor into simple syrup. They’re also fantastic muddled into gin or vodka to dress up a basic Martini. In fact, a British distiller is making Geranium Gin, which does taste of rose geraniums, but it’s not yet available in the United States so you’ll just have to use your imagination.

I like this mint for infusions and syrups because the orange flavor gives it a richness and depth you don’t find in ordinary mints.

Like other mints, it wants sun but will tolerate some shade. To keep it from spreading, grow it in a pot (you can bury the pot in the ground, leaving 2-3 inches of the rim aboveground, if you prefer), or plant it in one of those small areas hemmed in by concrete on all sides that everybody seems to have around their house somewhere. Give it regular water, and cut off an entire stalk, not individual leaves, when you’re ready to use it. If, after a few years, the mint starts to seem tough and bitter, dump the whole thing out of the pot, extract a few young side shoots, and re-pot just those shoots. The new plant will be sweet and tender again.

Angelica (Angelica archangelica) is a big ol’ gorgeous creature in the carrot family that has been used to flavor liqueurs since the Middle Ages. If you’re going to grow it, be sure to get this particular species. (Get the seeds here.) There are other ornamental angelicas sold in garden centers, but they can be mildly toxic. It’s actually fairly easy to grow from seed, and I’ve had good luck planting them in fall after the rains start. Just be sure you sow them where you actually want them to grow: like other members of the carrot family, angelica has a long taproot and doesn’t like to be transplanted. Angelica is happy in the shade and it likes damp soil, but I’ve ignored it all summer and it survived fine without extra water. The plant is a biennial, producing only leaves the first year and blooming and going to seed the second year. If you’re really into angelica, plant it two years in a row and always let some go to seed so you’ll have a fresh crop every year.

The roots and seeds are used to flavor liqueur and vermouth. Although distillers love to keep their recipes a secret, take a swig of Strega, Chartreuse, Galliano, and other such Italian and French herbal liqueurs and see if you don’t taste the indescribably fresh, bright, green flavor of angelica. The best way to use it in a cocktail is to chop off a thick stem and mix it into a simple syrup or infuse it in vodka for no more than 24 hours along with other fresh herbs and citrus. (Give fresh, green herbs too much time in vodka and you’ll start to get really nasty off flavors. Experiment with longer infusion times at your own peril.)

Like mint, basil can be tricky in infusions and simple syrups. The flavors just aren’t very stable and tend to break down, producing off-flavors that you won’t enjoy in a drink. But this thai basil really holds up well, so this is the one I recommend. Even so, don’t do long infusions with this one. Soak the herbs in vodka (or whatever spirit you’re using) for a day or two at most, and taste often. When it’s fabulous, it’s done.

Grow basil outdoors in rich soil, in warm, sunny weather, and give it regular water. Indoors, a sunny, south-facing window is ideal. If you’re really committed to growing basil indoors or having a supply year-round, you’ll get a little heated seed mat (available at garden centers and hydro shops for about twenty bucks) and put that under your plant. You can also pull a potted basil from its pot, rinse the roots off, and stick it in a glass of water. It won’t live forever, but keep a few going and you’ll be surprised at how well they do. Thai basil in particular is long-lived and can get through the winter with the right care.

Don’t let any basil bloom if you want it to keep producing leaves. Pinch back the blooms or harvest any stalks with blooms at the end first. And do harvest a stalk rather than pull off individual leaves–by doing that, you’ll actually be pruning the plant and helping to keep it going. Just start at the tip and cut back as much of one stalk as you need at a time.

To make your own herbal simple syrups, combine equal parts sugar and water and heat until the sugar melts. Add fresh, clean herbs and steep for one hour. Strain and use immediately, or save in the refrigerator in a tightly-sealed bottle or jar for 2-3 weeks. To make it last longer, add a splash of vodka.

In a tall, skinny Collins glass or a short tumbler filled with ice, pour gin over ice. Squeeze one lemon wedge over ice and drop into glass. Top with Dry Lavender Soda and a dash of Scrappy’s Lavender Bitters. Garnish.

Note: 1.5 oz is a serving of gin, but if you’d like to make this drink a little less boozy, it tastes fine with only 1 ounce.

And if you really get into making your own simple syrups, eventually you’ll want to try elderflower cordial. Check this out:

5 Comments

JasonJanuary 18, 2013

Hi there! Love the blog, and really looking forward to the book. On syrups, is there a general rule of thumb for how much of the herbs to add to the simmering simple syrup? If I’m using 1 cup sugar and 1 cup water, how much of the herb (lavender, orange mint, basil, etc), would you typically add?

Jason–if you’re using fresh leaves and stems, I’d add a loose cup, or basically a big handful. Remember that a lot of the content of those leaves is just water. If it’s something like lavender buds, which pack down pretty well and are also quite potent, I’d do half a cup or maybe even a quarter cup.

Bartenders who are doing large quantities will obviously want to experiment and figure out how to get away with the least amount of costly produce they can, but for gardeners with plenty of stuff to harvest, I’d say to go big and make something really flavorful.

Tanya JacobsenJuly 19, 2013

Hi Amy! I purchased your book recently and have started reading up on the origina and history of all the basic spirite. I thought you might be able to answer a question for me about a cocktail I had at a speekeasy bar recently. The Columbia Room in Washington, DC. The mixologist there created an AMAZING drink for me. I know she used Corsair Triple Smoke as the base, and she added 2 flavorings out of small amber bottles with eye droppers. I caught a glance at one of them and when I asked what it was, it sounded like she said it was chocolate extract, but the label on the bottle had a name that started with an “X”. I know in some south american countries the letter “X” is pronounced with a “ch” sound. I think she also added some lavendar extract. Shaken in a cocktail shaker, poured of a large ice cube, and garnished with a fresh, hand twisted orange zest (after carefully rimming the glass with the zest oils). This was 3 weeks ago and I’m still thinking about the drink! Do you know what the extracts were? where to buy them or how to make them myself?

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Amy Stewart

is the award-winning author of six books on the perils and pleasures of the natural world, including four New York Times bestsellers, The Drunken Botanist, Wicked Bugs, Wicked Plants and Flower Confidential. Her new book is The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks. Visit AmyStewart.com to find out more.

The Drunken Botanist

New York Times bestseller, The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create the World's Great Drinks (Algonquin Books, March 2013)